House of Cards
by Bladesworn
Summary: Zevran believes he is free of the Crows for good, but when an old ally comes to him for aid, distant Antiva beckons him home.... // Zevran/Tabris, post-endgame, sequel to Wicked Graceful Masques. Violence, language, eventual smut.
1. The Ace of Swords

_The Ace of Swords represents a venture that doesn't appeal to the seeker very much in the beginning, but that turns out better than expected. A seed for an idea has been planted. This card can also represent a challenge or a hurdle meant to test you. Remember, in every challenge, there is an opportunity. You may begin to think and communicate differently. Take advantage of new ideas. You use all your willpower, courage and intellect to reach your goals. Cut through the illusion and get to the truth. You may make a decision that will substantially effect your life. There is a necessary change for the better._

_Arcana: Great determination. Initiative. Fertility. Deep emotional feelings._

_Reversed: Striking out at others without cause. Entanglements. Sterility. Violence. Indulging in excess. Bringing about one's own destruction. Debacle. Self-destructive. Embarrassment. Hindrance._

xxxxx

On the whole, Zevran decided, he was rather pleased with how things had turned out, in the end.

None of them had expected to survive the end of the war - _least_ of all himself! - and so when the day came that they were cried far and wide as national heroes, their stories already being written into the patchwork tapestry that was Ferelden's history, none of them had quite known what to do. Some had given up perfectly good lives in order to follow Tabris on her _insane_ quest to defeat the Blight (he would _never_ let her forget that, that facing the archdemon had been, hands down, the most _moronic_ thing she had ever done, because there was a _line_ between bravery and stupidity, even if she had probably crossed it sometime back during the Joining) and some had had nowhere to go when, surprise of surprises, they were left standing at the end of the hellish siege. Morrigan had disappeared into the Wilds without so much as a goodbye; Oghren married Felsi in a right hurry and had himself enough children to found an entire caste on; Wynne had returned to the Circle, an official Warden Liaison by order of the King, and last Zevran heard she was shacking up with her silver fox Irving, and making the best of her last few years on Thedas. (And more power to her, Zevran thought rather pragmatically, because if the dowager mage must eventually die, let her die loved - and preferably in Irving's arms, in the most compromising position imaginable. Which would, actually, be in _Greagoir's_ arms, or perhaps both of them at once, but the wild roamings of imagination could wait until later.)

Alistair was King, naturally. He hadn't really wanted the job, like he'd told Tabris _over_ and _over_ again until Zevran rolled his eyes and thought that the lord doth protest _far_ too much, but he was having a merry go of it and doing pretty well, what, with the Bann there to help him if he dove into something that was well over his head. The Arl, wisely, had returned permanently to Redcliffe on Alistair's advice, and was now living out his retirement with a son to raise, twin daughters to spoil, and a pretty wife to keep him company on cold nights.

Not bad for the Theirin extended family, all around, though Anora was still pretty pissed at Tabris and Alistair about the whole 'I'm locking you in the tower until you rot or you stop being such a horrid bitch' bit, or so Zevran heard. Supposedly there had been an attempt to stage a coup, with the former queen using carrier pigeons to organize a resistance; Shale now spent her days gleefully squishing any bird that came within a league of Anora's tower, except for the gallows-ravens, who were smart enough to stay on the opposite end of the castle to begin with.

True to form and to his word, Sten returned to.... wherever the hell he had come from in the first place. Somewhere in the qunari lands. There remained an outstanding invitation to Tabris, from Sten and the Beresaad, to visit Seheron as an honored guest, should she ever find the courage and the time. (Courage the fool woman had in spades; it was time that was a more precious commodity, and sometimes she spoke wistfully of chartering a ship and just _going_ without any warnings given or permissions asked, but there was always something _else_ she was needed for, and such ambitions were repeatedly shelved.)

As for Leliana, she went back to Orlais, functioning sometimes as the Fereldan ambassador to the Empress, more often as a cutthroat spy; Zevran sometimes wondered why he and the bard had not gotten along better, before he remembered that Leliana had once been pointedly interested in the fairer gender, that is to say, in _Tabris_. And though he would not lie to himself, at first that particular chain of thought had been rather delightful to follow to its inevitable conclusion - after a while he decided that it was better off left in the realm of fantasy, because suddenly the idea of _sharing_ his lover wasn't so appealing anymore. And in that vein, Leliana was better off in Orlais, as far away from Tabris as possible.

Tabris had gone to _excessive_ lengths to teach him the difference between lust and affection, and the earring she wore in her left lobe was reminder enough of how complicated his damned feelings were _without_ throwing a wanton Orlesian into the mix.

She still had the dog, though. She would not part with him for the world, and when the commander of the Wardens from Orlais had marched up to Tabris's office intending to chew her out, for allowing Dog to chase the latest gaggle of young recruits around Amaranthine until they collapsed, the mabari mastiff had been sitting on his lambswool bed next to Tabris's desk, tongue lolling in an entirely too innocent, I'm-such-a-cute-doggie way. Suddenly, the Orlesian Warden had not been able to quite remember his argument anymore, especially considering that the recruits in question had called Tabris _knife-ears_ to her face, not realizing that the Hero of Ferelden was an elf. (That Zevran himself had been perched on her desk, idly cleaning his nails with the point of a dagger in case his _intervention_ should be required, could not have helped matters much.)

Dog was now an established part of the training regimen, and his teeth were an _amazing_ incentive for the lazy second sons of exasperated Fereldan fathers to straight up and fly right. It was getting to the point that some of the kids being sent now weren't there for Grey Warden training at all, and Dog was fast becoming a legend in his own right in the surrounding regions, beloved by children and _feared_ by teenagers.

And life was pretty good. Adia Tabris - _just_ Tabris, for those who knew her well knew she did not want to be saddled with her mother's name, did _not_ want to be a tame _replacement_ for the Adaia that Cyprion had lost - ran the Grey Wardens stationed at Amaranthine with a sexy smile that could melt the hardest heart, and an iron fist to smash whatever could not be coerced. The best part was that at night it was _his_ bed she came to, _his_ chest she rested her head on, _his_ council she sought in important decisions.

(_It will destroy you,_ Wolf occasionally still whispered from the back of his mind; Fox still sometimes offered his advice, in his candid and blunt way. Zevran ignored them. They had no place in Amaranthine, as much as he had no place in Antiva.)

But though the Grey Wardens flourished once again in Ferelden and all her enemies had been vanquished, Tabris was not _happy._

She never said anything about it to him, of course. That was not her way - she was subtle and creeping, like spiders or poison, and ill prone to complaints, instead expressing her displeasure in ways that were not immediately obvious, which had made him an _expert_ in figuring out what would make her the maddest. Her masque had been refined in their travels, now shifting effortlessly between ice-princess and swan-daughter and hell's-general, but so too had Zevran's ability to read her. They played Wicked Grace still, but the stakes were different from the old days - and half the time the games ended in a flurry of scattered cards and clothes _anyway_, which rather made the stakes pointless and her lieutenants blush charmingly, especially when they played _in her office_. (Cauthrien, become Tabris's second through some miracle of persuasion, learned very quickly to _knock_; the others she left to their own trials by fire, eventually delighting in their disturbed expressions should they forget to exercise caution when approaching Tabris's door.)

But sometimes he caught her curling the end of her long scarlet braid over and over around her fingers, staring blankly at a fixed point on the blotter; on the worst days, he saw something sad and restless in the depths of her eyes, which were a green so dark they were nearly black, and framed by a smattering of freckles that made her look _very_ young indeed to be the savior of the world. (He knew those freckles spangled constellations across her shoulders too, and he loved leaving bite-marks on them, little reminders of him that twinged whenever she shrugged or lifted an arm, and occasionally sent her off daydreaming in the middle of a very important meeting.)

But Tabris's adventurous heart was dying by degrees, immured in a prison she helped build, and it pained Zevran more than he cared to admit to see her being slowly smothered by her duty to the Wardens and her kingdom.

"Put the papers away," he said that day as he leaned over her ironwood desk, having had enough, and she looked up at him and put her quill-pen down. One of the windows was open to let in a cool breeze, and he faintly heard the sound of practicing soldiers in the courtyard below, just loud enough to barely eclipse Dog's barking in the distance.

"Something wrong, Zev?" She only called him Zev in throes of climax, or when she was hiding something; her masque was otherwise perfect. He commended her on the evenness of her gaze, the level neutrality of her voice, which was on the deep side for a woman; he liked it best when she commanded him in that voice, but this time there would be no commanding on her end, and no compromises, either.

"You," and he splayed a palm across her chicken-scratch orders to lean in closer, the ink still wet, the wax seal yet warm and squishy beneath his thumb, "need a vacation."

"I can't possibly -!" she objected; he held up a finger, waggled it, then pressed it to her lips to silence her. "I _know_ you, woman, better than you know yourself. You will run yourself into the ground, at the rate you are going, and don't think I don't _see_ you look out your window and sigh oh so _wistfully_ at the horizon. Now. Is there anything going on that that _sourpuss_ Cauthrien cannot oversee for you?"

She batted at his wrist to remove his offending finger from her mouth, but she did not otherwise move away, and at his description of Cauthrien a weary smirk was skirting the outer corners of her generous mouth. "Ser Alain's troop is due to arrive any day now -"

"The guest barracks are ready for them, and we could, ah, _break in_ the new bunks if you like. Something like four dozen of them, I hear," he smirked, which elicited the flickering grin he was hoping for. She schooled herself back to severity, however, spine straight as a board even as Zevran inched ever more forward and down.

"There's the matter of this latest class of recruits -"

"Hand them over to Dog, like you always do," he said with an eloquent shrug. "It is good to put the fear of the Maker and Tabris into their bones before they have the chance to become evil little bastards."

"And bitches," she corrected him; he grinned and echoed, "And bitches," putting both palms flat upon the desk as he leaned ever closer to his target, her lips.

"Favian and Jepheth have just broken ground on the new outbuildings," she pointed out, but her masque was slipping again, and Zevran knew that he had her backed into a corner - all he had to do was press the advantage.

"And will it not be for the _best_ if the leader of the Wardens is not here for the endless nights of sawing and hammering? After all, we have our own hammering to do, and my feelings are wounded when Warden business drags you from our bed at _midnight_. Pah!" He smacked the desk with one open palm to underline his point, looked exaggeratedly disgusted, which made her smile. "I seem to recall a time when you told the entire night watch of the guard at Redcliffe that unless _the archdemon itself_ was knocking on the gates and asking to come in for tea and crumpets, that we were not to be disturbed."

"That's different," said Tabris, her lovely grin refusing to fade, and she tilted her head just so, to make her lovely red hair fall into her dark eyes and give him the best angle of approach for if and when he finally decided to kiss her. "We could have died the next morning." _And I wasn't going to die a virgin,_ was the unspoken addendum to that statement, but she did not need to say it. He knew anyway.

"And another Blight could start tomorrow morning," he pointed out quietly, from the vantage point of being mere inches away from her face, from her enticing lips. "That does not mean you cannot live _today_. Let Cauthrien have the trouble for a time. Let me take you away from all this, Tabris...."

He lifted a hand from the desk to tilt her chin slightly upwards with gentle fingertips, and as their lips brushed ever so delicately he knew he had her cold, he just had to convince her to say _Yes_, and for Zevran Arainai there were _many_ different ways in which to coax this beautiful woman to say yes -

- and then there was a soft, edgeless sound like the sharp flapping of wings, and an arrow appeared on the desk, stuck at an angle and quivering in the blotter, lodged between the middle and ring fingers of Zevran's left hand.

They moved in tandem, like lovers do when they have danced not only between the sheets but on the battlefield as well; Tabris twisted like a snake backwards out of her chair and Zevran vaulted the desk, both of them somersaulting into low crouches and putting their backs to the wall, protected by the bulk of the ironwood and the angle it had on the window. They had discussed long ago how to arrange her office that it was the most defensible in case someone took exception to the Grey Wardens, and those talks came into fruition now, two sets of daggers glittering in their hands and waiting for the next salvo of arrows to arrive. Long experience had taught them both to _never_ go unarmed, even in the heart of friendly territory. (Zevran had a special writ that gave him, a known assassin, dispensation to bear arms in the presence of the king. Seeing as it was signed by Alistair himself, nobody had much right to complain.)

Silence.

Slowly, with Fox and Wolf berating him every step of the way, Zevran belly-crawled to the steel-shuttered windows and reached up with a dagger to lever the open one shut.

No further missiles pelted the windows; the faint sounds through the metal did not indicate any sort of dismay in the yard that might give evidence of attack. The door was shut and locked - Zevran had made certain of that - and there were no convenient trees nearby in which an assassin might hide, no rooftops upon which one might perch without being seen by the rounds of patrols. It all seemed a bit of a mystery, at least until he turned around to examine the arrow still caught in Tabris's blotter.

She had stood up and was bent over it, clever enough not to touch it; her weapons were still in hand, however, and she twirled them nervously, her blood up and not in the fun way. "What the hell was that?"

He paced to stand beside her, plucked the arrow fearlessly from the desk. It was a barbed hunting-arrow painted completely black, the head slender and pointed and meant to cause more damage coming _out_ than going _in_; two of the feathers on the fletching were the blue-black of a raven, and the third was white, barred with rust - a barn owl. Very distinctive. Recognition flowed like icewater through his veins. "Thought, memory and wisdom," he growled, narrowing his eyes; examination of the head proved its bindings could be undone with clever fingers, and that the tip of the arrow was hollowed out just enough for a slip of rolled paper.

"Zevran?" Tabris was asking, watching from his shoulder as he shook the message from the arrow. "What is it?"

The writing on the paper was tiny, angular and cramped, and it did not help that the material itself was nearly transparent in its thinness; still, he knew the lettering, the style, the curt, sharp words that he could practically hear spoken as if the author stood before him. _North gate, midnight. Need to talk._

Below the K was etched a tiny crescent moon, the circle of ink less than half the size of his pinkie-nail, and for a moment all at once the past came rushing back, when he was a gangling lad in the shadow of a she-beast fit to make the leader of the Crows modulate his tone in respect. He blinked it away, but her voice remained, deep and neutral, all tone and emotion and even gender scoured from it by the harshness of the desert.

_It will destroy you._

"It's Wolf," said Zevran, glancing to Tabris. "My old mentor."

"Wolf? As in from _the Crows?_ In sodding _Antiva?_ What the _hell_ is she doing in Ferelden?" There was a beat as her brain worked lightning-fast, taking in his expression and stance, and she squared her shoulder and frowned hawkishly at him, as if she were ready to take him down then and there. "Wait, forget that. You aren't seriously thinking of _meeting_ her, are you?"

He forgot sometimes that _she_ knew him as well as _he_ knew her. "She _did_ ask ever so nicely, Tabris."

"Zevran, she could've _killed_ you with that shot! Or me! This isn't like Taliesen, you can't just charge up and announce yourself and _cross your damned fingers_ in hope for the best!" Aah, but she was _beautiful_ when she was angry! Colour rose into her cheeks like the first blossoms of spring, and the line of her shoulders tensed like a bowstring needing to be plucked. But he could scarcely afford to get caught up in her loveliness, at least not until the matter of Wolf was settled - and with a sigh, he touched her cheek with the hand that had contacted the letter she was writing, smearing ink across her freckles with his thumb.

"If Wolf wanted me dead," he assured her, "that arrow would have gone though my _eye_, not the blotter. There is no such thing as a warning shot in the Crows."

"She could've missed," Tabris mumbled, somewhat petulant, and he saw the real reason that she was upset, glimmering in the shadows of her broken masque; she had been willing to be snatched away from all her troubles, even if only for a little while, and the moment she had given in, some stranger had shattered their intimacy with undesired complications. He discarded the arrow-pieces on the desk, bent his head to graze the corner of her mouth with his own - they were nearly of a height, he and Tabris, though she tended to wear thick soles on her boots to make up the difference. She tangled her fingers in his shirt when he pulled slightly back, and turned her shoulders into his, not wanting him to go. The Warden craved touch almost as much as he did.

"You remember Leliana with her bow, yes? This woman makes Leliana look like a clumsy child. Wolf does not miss, unless it is on purpose. No, there is something else going on here, I think." But then he grinned and set hands on the desk behind her, one to either side of her hips, and nipped at the triangular nick in her right ear, whispering, "But forget about Wolf. We will _both_ deal with her, with a full complement of Wardens if you like, and _I_ will deal with Ser Sourpuss, and in the morning we will leave on our vacation and see _all_ of Thedas before the Wardens grind you into dust with their endless duties. Do we have a deal?"

"Hmm," she half-smiled, legging up slightly to perch on the edge of her desk, her shin brushing the outside of his thigh, "I think I need to be convinced."

"That can be arranged," he grinned, and promptly ducked his head to nibble at the long white muscles of her slender neck, smelling of lilac soap and oh so delicious -

_Tok tok tok._ "Commander Tabris! Your, um, your door's locked!"

"Always with the sodding timing...." Tabris, her hands wound in Zevran's blonde hair, made a noise of utter frustration in her throat, which reverberated through Zevran's teeth. "Fennec, Maker damn you, _go away._"

"You... you don't want your mail?" The unseen boy sounded as if his heart had been wounded to the quick, and Zevran muffled first a laugh into Tabris's shoulder, then a yelp as she dug her heel into the back of his knee, which forced his balance forward, his weight onto his supporting arm, and his hips into close contact with hers. He in turn made her gasp and shudder with a long-fingered hand skating up under the hem of her shirt, along her ribs - which, in hindsight, was likely the reason why she nudged the inkpot off the desk with her knee. It fell with a crash and shattered against the flagstones, sending glass and ink everywhere in a horrible mess that, in that moment, neither Zevran nor Tabris could have possibly cared _less_ about.

"C-commander Tabris, what was that noise?"

"Shove the mail under the door, Fennec! I'm rather _busy_ right now -" managed Tabris as Zevran's palm found the mound of her breast, and his teeth tugged urgently at her earlobe, one set of her nails digging into the back of his neck, opposite hand seeking the wiry tattooed shoulder underneath his own shirt. Patience was never a virtue in Tabris's office.

"But, um, there's a package from Miss Wynne -"

They both paused rather reluctantly in their frenetic attempts to bypass each other's clothes, panting somewhat, listening _very_ carefully, because packages from Wynne were few and far between, and generally meant only _one_ thing.

"It's, um, labeled _brownies?_" Fennec sounded very nervous. "Ser Cauthrien told me to tell you that, um, unless you come out here and get them she's, um, giving them to the recruits."

Cauthrien knew _exactly_ how to twist the knife, didn't she? "It would be a shame to let those brownies go to waste," murmured Zevran, and from Tabris's huffing sigh, she was inclined to agree. He let her up, reluctantly - but not before she could seize him by the hair and drag him under for a kiss that should have left scorchmarks on her ironwood desk - and she bent to put her chair to rights before trotting to the door, flicking open locks with the practiced ease of one who has been doing precisely that from _both_ sides of the locked doors her entire life. She kept her office door closed for a moment, however, looking at him wearily, as if she felt the weight of years that had not even come to pass yet.

"Oh, sod it all. Go talk with Cauthrien, Zevran, get it out of the way before I change my mind. And detail a troop or two for tonight. I have to rewrite those damned orders now.... I'll save you some brownies."

"Promise?" He grinned and tweaked her rear, which earned him a playful swat and a smirk.

"No. Hurry back."

"Oh, I will."


	2. The Queen of Swords

_The Queen of Swords is the great warrior-queen. She is ready for battle, yet is combined with femininity and creative intelligence. An independent woman with her own ideals and values, she is sharp, quick witted and intensely perceptive. She usually outwits her opponents and believes knowledge is power. She knows how to cut through extraneous information to get to the heart of the matter, and can be outspoken and sharp-tongued. She can also be vindictive at times. She is secretive and can detect this in others, as she may have to defend her position and fight for what is hers._

_Arcana: A strong-willed woman, or a widow or woman of sadness. One who has known great happiness and lost it, or who has sacrificed much to achieve her goals. This can be a card of great mourning._

_Reversed: Narrow-mindedness, maliciousness, bigotry, deceit, vengeful, prudish. A treacherous ally. An ill-tempered person. A vengeful woman who plots but lacks the skill to bring about her devious plan. An enemy._

xxxxx

Tabris was not, as a rule, prone to foul moods, but her old friend irritation had come home to roost in her left temple, twisting and spinning the nerves there like the fraying thread upon which hangs the metaphorical sword.

It wasn't that she was jealous of Wolf - because she _wasn't_ - or that she disliked her duties as Grey Warden - because she didn't. She had, in the oh-so-charming way that Oghren had once put it, _busted her ass_ to get where she was, traipsing back and forth across all Ferelden seeking every ally that would flock to her banner, every soldier who would follow where she led. She had masterminded the scheme that saved her world and everything she knew that was in it, performed heroic acts (quite a lot of those) and lied and manipulated her foes (plenty of that as well) in between the occasional darkspawn slaying or rescue of kittens from the lofty boughs of trees. She had picked locks and pockets, stolen treasures and hearts and the election of a King, not once but _twice_, and could any other Warden in _Thedas_ make such a claim? What Ferelden _was_ owed itself to her, to the hand of Adia Tabris, who was born on a dirt floor in a Denerim alienage, breathing to life in the same blood-spattered spot that her mother had died.

And though Adaia's greatness had long ago been eclipsed, the daughter outpacing the mother in fame and skill, Tabris's Antivan lover was not the _only_ one haunted by the shadows of the past.

It _galled_ her. She hadn't _chosen_ to have her arranged wedding crashed by a psychopathic rapist with an appetite for elves. She hadn't _wanted_ to be abducted, to watch a friend die in front of her, to have to carry Shianni out of that human-stinking house with blood running down her cousin's legs and staining her dress. (She _had_, however, chosen to hack off and feed Vaughan his own testicles, watching him die choking and bleeding from the nethers with cold dark eyes and a stone heart. That ghost was one that could never touch her conscience; Tabris had a certain ruthless streak, and she believed wholly in letting the punishment fit the crime.) She hadn't _tried_ to put the entire alienage in danger, hadn't _meant_ to cause even indirectly the carnage that followed, the riots, the quarantine, _any_ of it.

But when the winds of change blew and others were swept away, Tabris, her mother's daughter, calmly tacked in her sails and rode the hurricane.

Duncan had helped. It had wounded her heart to have to leave Shianni in such a state as she was, but the Grey Warden had lent aid when it was needed most, if only indirectly. Who knew it would lead to such other things, places Tabris had only _dreamed_ of seeing? She had schooled Orzammar into order, scoured Redcliffe of demons and darkspawn, freed the Circle of the abominations that held them at bay, met the Dalish and cleansed them of their curse. She had traversed almost the entirety of the Bannorn - _on foot!_ - until she knew the land better than the lords that owned it; she had communed with the ashes of that most sacred figure of the Chantry, Andraste herself, and been found worthy of the honor.

She'd travelled with Templar princes and qunari knowledge-seekers, drunken berserkers and crafty witches, Orlesian bards and healers with power beyond imagining, golems with the soul of women. And a dog, who loved Tabris unconditionally and with every fiber of his being.

And an assassin, an Antivan son of a prostitute, with a smile like a switchblade - quick and deceptive and pretty in a certain razor-sharp way, guaranteed to steal the breath from her lungs whenever he hit her with it.

(He'd reminded her of a different dashing rogue, once upon a time. Daveth's ghost was another who haunted her from the shadows, making her heart twist in her chest, wondering if she could have _saved him_, if there was something, _anything_ she could have done - _No,_ said Duncan's shade sometimes in her nightmares, clasping her on the shoulder with a hand made of bone; _Daveth's test was his own._ And though she knew that he was right, such thoughts did not bring her absolution.)

She'd faced down the archdemon with no thought for her own safety, had danced the thin red line of tempting fate until the shoes tattered beneath her feet and the stone became the sky. Tabris had gambled, and she'd _won_, big time, big enough to redeem all the peoples of the lands who put their trust in her. She'd united an entire sodding _country_ - no mean feat, given that Fereldans thought that warring with _each other_ was the next best thing to warring with Orlais - and ensured at _minimum_ a generation of peace, that children in Ferelden could grow up for once without the threat of war or an archdemon over their heads. Alistair was even going out of his way to see that elves were treated rather more equally than they had in the past, razing the squalid alienage in Denerim and replacing it with a much nicer neighborhood, courtesy of the Crown.

Why, then, did her mother's spectre haunt her still? What task did she have yet left unfinished, what work was still undone?

Could _anything_ satisfy Adaia Tabris and lay her memory to rest?

She had the shrewd suspicion that the answer to that was _no_.

So there was the Wardens and Amaranthine, and Dog, and a hundred sleepless nights while she stared at the ceiling and wondered where she had gone so wrong, how she had done _so_ badly in her life. There had been casualties, of course. All wars, no matter how petty, demanded their due in blood; was it her price, then, for winning the war, to tally the dead every night until the darkness took her? How many nights could she lay stiff and aching of a malady not of her flesh, watching those she had failed to save march before her eyes in an endless accusing procession, always, _always_ beginning with that first kill, the woman whose life she had taken in beginning her own?

Tabris would have already gone mad, trapped by paperwork and politics by day and by memories and guilt at night, were it not for Zevran.

She never told him how she felt, the endless anguish that wracked her very soul whenever the sun slid below the horizon; she was not so foolish as to think that he did not guess. He was clever, in his way, and just as she had navigated the winding labyrinth surrounding his heart, he had cracked the masque that protected her own. He knew, somehow. And when she could not sleep (which was quite often, and grew more so around the times of the dark moon) and would not be comforted by delightful indulgences of carnality, he lay awake beside her, his heartbeat slow and steady beneath her cheek, and painted her stories with his rolling accent and creative mind. His voice in her ears, her eyes shut and a different world stretched out before her like a beckoning hand, the memories would subside just long enough to allow her peace, to let her breathing become a level rhythm and her mind become still as deep waters. She rarely heard the end of his wild tales - the one about his aunt and the pig and the priest, for one, had made her laugh before sleep beckoned, and though she had no idea how it truly ended, since the priest had wanted the pig for dinner, she was rather on the side of the pig. But she heard them, and he seemed anything but offended when she began to snore amidst his stories, so he kept telling them.

He'd told her about Wolf, one night.

The way he spoke of her, she was a goddess made flesh, the second coming of Andraste; Tabris had never seen Zevran speak of a woman, speak of _anyone_ without so much as a speck of lust in his wiry, compact frame. Even Wynne had not been so immune to the Crow's roving eye, and for _days_ it had _nagged_ at Tabris like a thorn in her ribs, forgotten until she breathed too sharply or thought too quickly, and then she was brooding and upset all over again. She had, after staying up far too late one night nursing a cup of Golden Scythe Black, decided at last that this Wolf was somehow untouchable, a holy icon, powerful and perfect in his mind - the incorruptible mother-figure that Zevran had been deprived of, given that the woman who bore him had been anything _but_ incorruptible. There was another like her that Zevran sometimes mentioned (Jackal? Coyote? The House of Crows was not known for its creative naming conventions, it seemed) an Orlesian cat burglar, from description, who had served a similar role as teacher. There was that same awe there, that subtle implication that Zevran, fearless, almost suicidal Zevran, would _hesitate_ to raise his blade in anger, simply for the thrashing that he would receive for his insolence.

(And wasn't that the pot calling the kettle black, how they each disapproved of the other's willingness to throw their lives away?)

But here, all unexpected, was Wolf herself, sending black arrows in through windows and begging clandestine meetings amongst dark shadows, poised to swoop in and destroy everything Tabris had worked so hard to build, _especially_ Zevran's fixation on a certain redheaded Warden.

Okay, _maybe_ she'd been fibbing to herself when she'd thought that she wasn't jealous of Wolf. But like _hell_ was Tabris going to meet her sudden archrival for Zevran's attention unprepared.

Cauthrien was known for overkill; it was a detriment sometimes, the aggressive shows of force that Loghain's former lieutenant favored, but there were times for Tabris's brand of subtlety and _then_ there were times to make it clear that she was _not_ a person to be sodded with. Midnight at the north gate was one of the latter. Wardens lined the torchlit ramparts and patrolled the courtyards, interspersed regularly with mageling volounteers from the budding corps of Circle adorees, and more regularly _still_ with their Templar babysitters, who outnumbered their charges two to one. There were only a handful of mabari in Amaranthine - and a single bitch among them, whom Dog courted with an ardor that made even Cauthrien smile - but they were _all_ present in the north, pacing back and forth along the walls, sniffing the gate's portcullis, exchanging whuffs and growls and whines in a canine network of information that would have put the most skilled spy to shame.

Tabris had made a promise the mabari pack, that the mastiff that spotted Wolf first would get an _entire roast ox_ all to themselves. She was not above bribery where warranted.

Ten minutes to midnight, Zevran appeared from inside the keep. He didn't appear any different than usual - leathers oiled into supple whispers that flowed with his movements, blonde hair barely contained with thin braid that began at his temples and met in a snarl of mane at the back of his head, long daggers crossed at his back where Tabris wore her own at her hips - but there was a hitch in his gliding walk, a different glint in his dark eyes, a certain unease in his switchblade-smile. And he kept flexing his hands, as if he were twirling one of his knives or doing tricks with a coin, though neither of these things were actually present.

This was a first: Zevran Arainai was _nervous_. Even facing down Taliesen, he had been more calm and cool.

As Tabris folded her arms across her chest, standing alone some distance from the north gate proper as she waited for him to reach her, she thought he well had right to be nervous. Maker only knew what kind of mood Wolf would be in, or what mood _she_ herself would be in, and personally, Tabris thought that she was the bigger danger to Zevran's personal health. Every moment that ticked closer to midnight, it appeared that the answer to the question would be _pique_.

He paused in his swaggering walk long enough to duck his head and graze the corner of her mouth in a touchnote of affection, too distracted by the upcoming meeting to extend it into something more, which suited Tabris's irritated mindset just _fine_, thank you very much. "Any sign of her?"

"Not yet." They turned together and strode for the gate, the patrolling guards speeding their pace somewhat, looking busy and attentive and every _inch_ the Grey Wardens that Tabris expected them to be. Good. If Wolf slipped past the line and into Amaranthine, heads would _roll_, in the metaphorical sense, if not the real one. "We've still got a few minutes to go, though."

"She is here already, most likely," Zevran noted beneath his breath, "and _has_ been since sunset."

"Is that her way?" said Tabris, sourly. "Excessive preparation? Hardly seems like anyone _you'd_ learn from."

He did not grin, but he managed a smirk and looked something like his normal self, tilting his head a few degrees. "It is _her_ way, after all, Tabris, not mine. Come. She is very likely outside the gate."

They walked. At her signal, the portcullis was lifted to the height of Tabris's hip - not very high at all, on an elf - and they slipped beneath the gate in tandem, the tips of Zevran's hair whisked through by the portcullis's sharp points as it was set back into position, practically on their heels. Effectively locked out of Amaranthine, they straightened, glanced one last time at each other, and approached the glorious darkness. It cloaked the keep like a mist, thick and impenetrable, the torches upon the ramparts only doing so much to dispel its mysteries, unaided by the fact that the snow had long since melted, to reveal a wet, decaying carpet of leaves that did not do quite so much to reflect the light. The air under the winter-naked trees was cold but not frozen, yet holding spring's fickle promise of a summer to come.

Zevran was a half-step behind her when she stopped an arm's length from the circle of light, too canny to venture too near to that darkness with eyes yet unused to shadows; it was not yet midnight, but she drew breath anyway to call forth Wolf, prepared words on her lips, when suddenly Zevran's mentor beat Tabris to the punch.

Wolf did not so much appear from the landscape as seem to meld from it, to be born from it, to step forward as an autonomous being and shake herself free of the night. Where she had been Tabris had taken for a strange twist in the trunk of a tree, not five steps from her position - if she had continued into the forests around Amaranthine, she would have walked straight past it without a second thought, seeking Wolf in the boughs or in the bushes or leaves, not in a place that Tabris should have spotted immediately, or that the rampart-guards should have seen. She was tall as any human male, pale with short black hair that obscured her ears, her face the sharp-featured androgyny that comes not of great beauty but of when all gender has been sandpaper-scraped from one's soul; she could have been fifteen or fifty, male or female, elf or human, and yet was nothing like _any_ of them all at the same time. She wore a green-grey cloak that only reached her knees, with strategically tattered edges and holes, breaking up her silhouette - an old hunter's trick, but effective, especially in the night - and dark trousers and thick-soled boots, a bow at her back, a knife painted black strapped to her thigh, too long to be a dagger, too short for a sword.

But it was her eyes that were the mirrors of her soul, grey and keen as steel, reflecting nothing but a vast perfect neutrality, something that Tabris had only ever seen in the eyes of real wolves, at least the ones unaffected by the insanity of the Blight. What that neutrality said was this: This meeting can go one of two ways, and I do not care which. There is the easy way, and that is very, very easy. Then, there is the hard way.

The hard way did not bear much thinking about, in Tabris's opinion. Perhaps Wolf had acquired her sobriquet a different way than she had originally thought.

Wolf stopped at the very edge of the light, head inclined respectfully. Tabris mirrored the gesture, as did Zevran, who made an effort now to still his anxious hands - and then Wolf ducked her shoulders and shed her bow, throwing it to the ground at Tabris's feet, something that made Tabris take a half-step back in reflex and puzzlement. The Crow was clearly not done, however, as she shucked her cloak next, revealing a slim torso and broad shoulders clad in black (perhaps she bound her breasts, for Tabris saw nothing at all to indicate her alleged gender) crisscrossed with leather straps that formed a wide X across Wolf's chest. These were shrugged out of and thrown on the pile, a harness to hold what appeared at first to be a pair of scroll-cases, but from a slight rattle were more likely quivers of arrows; then a triangular dagger from the small of her back, and the long knife from her thigh, straps and all. Her arms were bare to the shoulder and decorated only with a fine network of scars, especially on her strong, long-fingered hands, revealed when her gloves were stripped and dropped atop the collection of her personal effects. It was cool but she did not shiver, a living weapon, all lean muscle and grace, untroubled by her willing divestment of her obvious weaponry. (That she was still armed, somehow, Tabris did not doubt for a _second_. That Wolf felt that she did not _need_ such trappings to defend herself, however - that suspicion was beginning to take hold, and fast. Tabris had not escaped the alienage and lived to save Ferelden by being overly _trusting_.)

"Came peacefully," Wolf noted with a slight tilt of her head, and her voice was as hard to read as her face, middle-toned and unaccented, somewhat rough as if from disuse, gender-neutral, near emotionless, notable only for her curious practice of using as few words as possible to convey her point. She flicked her eyes down, then up Tabris's own lithe frame, a swift and critical assessment that ended in a slight nod; she repeated the gesture for Zevran, punctuating the nod this time with a quiet, "Zev."

"Wolf." He bowed from the waist, his smile easy, deceptively so. Tabris found herself feeling a sudden spike of unreasonable hatred for the tall pale Crow before her, for the simple unasked use of Zevran's nickname that he apparently _approved_ of, but he was not privy to her thoughts, and certainly not looking for it to flicker briefly through her dark eyes. "It has been a _very_ long time. This is Tabris." A gesture in her direction, palm up and fingers spread, as if she were something to be displayed. Wolf nodded again in her direction. "To what do we owe this visit? Not business, I hope?" There was his smile again, charming as a snake-oil salesman, but there was also a noted lack of heat, and Tabris could almost hear the echo of the missing words that he would have spoken to any other woman: _If you are here for **pleasure**, I am sure that we can accommodate your wishes.  
_

Wolf was not blind; she saw Tabris's face, and Tabris saw that grey gaze pause briefly there as if in subtle signal that she had seen, but the Crow did not so much as bat an eyelash at Zevran's question. "Not pleasure, but not business." She paused, a moment too long allowing the silence to stretch out before she broke it again. "Things happening in Antiva City."

Well, _that_ was informative. "Many things happen in Antiva City," Zevran said smoothly, blonde brows rising. "In fact, I would go so far as to say that _things happen_ there every single day. Why should this day be any different?" Flippancy. It was unexpected, given the gravity of Zevran's respect for Wolf - Tabris glanced at the tanned elf, wondering what was going on in that painted head of his - and Wolf scoffed, a sharp exhalation of breath that left a puff of steam in the night air.

"Important things," the tall pale assassin insisted, calmly shifting her weight to center over the opposite leg, hands loose at her sides. Her patience must have been monumental in scope; no wonder she had been able to put up with a younger, even more uncouth version of Zevran. "Fighting between cells. Salvail, Honoria, Culainn, Nasha, all dead." She tilted her head, and both of the women watched Zevran's face as the names were listed, though none but Salvail meant anything at all to Tabris, and even that had only been a mention in passing, an overheard conversation between the former Crow and Wynne. Zevran himself was very careful to school his features to blankness, listening raptly with deadened eyes to what seemed a speech of epic proportions from taciturn Wolf. "Taliesen also - but you knew that. House's divided, polarized. Many cells bereft. No clear leader. No heavy favorite to win."

"Let me guess," said Zevran, tones calculating, as if he had long ago predicted this scenario and it had only now come to pass. "Hassaran made a move to corner the House, and Miach stubbornly refused to die, so now the Crows are deadlocked in their own little civil war?"

Wolf inclined her head, silent confirmation. "And what does that have to do with_ us_, precisely?" blurted Tabris, before she could contain the words; both Crows glanced at her as if she had suggested they both go parade naked through the high court at Denerim, which was to say, Wolf seemed merely puzzled, while Zevran blinked and appeared as if he had been rudely awakened from a dream. "I mean, it sucks that the Crows are self-destructing and everything," Tabris continued, unable to stop herself beneath their combined confusion, "but Zevran's been out of Antiva and the Crows for a long damn time, and in any case he's sworn to _my_ service. It's not exactly his _concern_ anymore, what happens in Antiva."

Zevran blinked, hard and slow, and Tabris thought that he was forcibly reminding himself of all that had occurred, of how important it was _not_ to backslide into blindly obeying the training of a lifetime. Assassins were like mages, in a certain way; obedience was ground into their very bones, as soon as they were old enough to understand the concept. "She's right," he said to Wolf, after a span of heartbeats. "You have always been a neutral party, Wolf - you and Fox both." (Fox! That was the name. Of _course_ she would remember it as soon as it was spoken.) "But after so long away, so am I. I am practically an apostate myself, after what I did to Taliesen!" He laughed it, with the unique and unfeeling humour of an assassin, trained for death and little else. "What would you have me do, then? Show up and wag my finger in their faces, ask them to play nice? Or kill one of them for you? Has Miach finally gone too far in her boasting for you to be able to stand her, Wolf?" His voice was light but his words were cutting, sharp as his smile; if they found purchase in Wolf's soul, she did not show it. Instead she stared at both Zevran and Tabris in turn, silent, endless moments in which vast wheels turned behind that grey gaze, thoughts lightning-quick, emotions flickering like ghosts across the silver expanse of her irises. She was considering something, something of great import, and behind them at the gate Tabris heard a mabari hound baying warning at long last as there was an impression of movement from their visitor -

But the blow did not come; Wolf moved, and she knelt in the dead leaves, hands open with the sides of her palms pressed together, as if her hands were fused together from pinky to wrist. Tabris knew the gesture - it was older than Antiva, older perhaps than the desert that city straddled, a sign that a supplicant held no aggression and was unarmed. She should have bowed her head to complete it, but she didn't, her face tilted upwards to watch them, silver eyes harder than diamonds, her shoulders trembling slight with fury or grief or pride, or perhaps all three, held in abeyance by an act of what was surely an adamant will.

There was something deep and terrible roiling beneath the serenity of Wolf's surface, something she struggled to keep in check, and it didn't take long for Zevran and Tabris to hear what it was.

"Hassaran's stealing children. _Especially_ Crow children. All anyone ever finds of them are _bodies._ Fox was captured searching for where they're kept," said Wolf, growling the clipped words, as the wind began to howl and keen across the towers of Amaranthine, twining with the bellow of the mabari. "Come to you because if Fox's gone, can't trust _anyone_ else. Not in Antiva. You were my best student. Nobody else has ever left the Crows and lived." She hesitated again, dropped her head to hide her face as the tremor in her shoulders strengthened - then she spat it out in a harsh, tormented whisper, as if it were a poison and she had to purge herself of it before it destroyed her.

"Hassaran.... he took my son. Beg of you, Zev. Help me. _Please._"

Tabris felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather, and when she looked to Zevran, she saw him blanched white as a ghost, hands clenched so tight that dribbles of scarlet leaked across his knuckles from where his nails dug into his own palms.


End file.
